


While Staring Off

by Tea Dragon (TheAccidentalNinja)



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Game(s), Post-Twilight Princess, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26294653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAccidentalNinja/pseuds/Tea%20Dragon
Summary: Time moves differently in the Twilight Realm than it does in Hyrule...
Relationships: Link & Midna (Legend of Zelda)
Kudos: 26





	While Staring Off

“You idiot! While you were staring off into dreamland, your lantern got stolen!”  


The memory came to her, suddenly, unbidden, as she leaned on the balcony, letting her gaze get lost in the misty horizon of twilight. She had been watching the haze curl and snake, drifting away in her thoughts, and suddenly she was caught in a memory. The mist around her was the putrid thick smoke of the swamp, and she was reprimanding him as he had accidentally let his lantern get stolen by a monkey. He spaced out so much sometimes, it was almost funny.

Then she snapped back, the memory gone as suddenly as it had come.   


Not that it was a surprise. She thought of him often. The adventure they’d had together had been so short, yet after it was over, it had been so hard to continue life without him again. Their adventure had been  _ too _ short. She had never told him that, of course. She would never admit it… but maybe she should have.

There were so many things she could have told him. So many things she should have. So many things she never did.

She missed him. Of course she did. And she wondered, as she did time and again, how long it had been. It had been a long time, certainly, but  _ how _ long? Years? Decades? Dread settled in her stomach when she fleetingly entertained the thought that it might’ve been longer than that.

Now that it had started down that path, her mind continued along the line of thought that she had travelled so many times, as through a rut that had been worn down by many years of going the same way.

How had he been after they’d parted? What had he done? Helped Zelda rebuild Hyrule, surely. He probably travelled far and wide, all over, all over those places that they’d gone  _ together _ , except with Zelda this time, or maybe alone. He’d probably stopped to help every single person on the way that had been affected by Zant’s and Ganon’s blight. Because he  _ would _ , it was so like him, she couldn’t imagine him doing otherwise. He would never see a person in need and just pass them by.

And then, after rebuilding Hyrule, what had he done? Did he go back to being a farmer, stayed with those children who loved him so? Did he become a knight, to stay by Zelda’s side? Did he…?

She let herself entertain this thought, one that she rarely allowed herself. Did he, maybe, travel the land searching for a way to connect their two worlds again?

Did he miss her as much as she missed him?

Someone knocked on the door. It resounded with a deep, hollow echo that bounced around the room.

“Come in”, she called, still distracted.

An attendant entered, bowing, shuffling his feet, seeming incredibly flustered.

“Your highness… my queen… you have a visitor.”

“…Yes? Who is it?”

She frowned. She wasn’t expecting any visitors.

Her attendant shuffled and fidgeted even more.

“W-well, you see… it appears… it seems a breach has been opened, somewhere, somehow. He says that he comes from the Realm of Light.”

Her breath caught. And she held it. Waiting.

“…He seeks an audience with you." Another pause. "...He says his name is Link.”

She tried to breathe out, but couldn’t. Nearly choked. Manage to breathe again just in time to maintain her dignity.

“L-let him in.” She hoped no one had heard her stammer.

Soft footsteps came closer; a young man walked in, and for just a moment…

For just a moment, she dared hope. That those striking blue eyes, that golden hair, that green tunic, that confident stride, that legendary sword at his back might belong to  _ him _ . That it might be him.

He bowed, low, and spoke in a soft voice. “I’ve come from the Realm of Light to speak with Queen Midna, Ruler of the Twilight Realm.”

The moment was gone. It had been so long since she’d seen him, yet she knew. His voice was so similar, but not the same. His stature, his face, the colour of his hair and eyes… they were so very similar. But they were not the same. They belonged to someone else.   


Someone  _ new _ .

And the implications of that sent tears to her eyes with no way to stop them.

“W-welcome… Link.”

The moment of silence lingered on for a second too many. She took a deep breath, readying herself to hear of some plea for help, some request for an alliance, whatever great and urgent reason it was that had sent him all the way here.

Perhaps he meant to say all those things. But none of it came out. Instead, he let his gaze fall to the floor and said softly,   


“I’m sorry. I’m not… your Link.”

He lifted his gaze again and met hers. And the tears fell down across her face.

He knew. He knew what she had been waiting for, knew all the expectations of the person that was supposed to be in that space. Knew that he wasn’t it. Yet, even so, he had to carry all the burden that had belonged to someone else’s shoulders.

The realization made Midna choke even further. Because even  _ this _ was so like him, he too had been weighed down by the burden of being a hero that he had never wanted to be. Weighed down by the responsibilities and the shadow of a hero that had been gone for………

“……how long has it been?”

The words came out quietly, shakily, so unbecoming of a queen.

For a moment, the blue eyes were blank, confused. Then they filled with sadness, and turned to the ground again. He understood.

“I… I couldn’t say for sure.” He paused, hesitant, rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “…It’s been well over two hundred years.”

Two hundred years.

He had been gone for two hundred years.

“I- I see.”

The silence was long, awkward and tense.

She didn’t know where she found the courage or the frame of mind, but she took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders, and raised her eyes to meet his. Link’s. A different Link.

“I apologize. This is not how I should be welcoming you. I can only assume you came all this way because something is befalling Hyrule and you have something to ask of me.”

The boy— _ Link _ —paused, blinked, let out a sigh.

“I did. I do have something to ask of you. But… I think… I will give you a moment.” He paused, in a strange sort of way, with a complicated look on his face. “I’ll give you both a moment.”

Both?

Link hesitantly shuffled through a pouch at his waist, then pulled out something and left it gently on a nearby table. He bowed again and left the room.

Midna leaned in to look at the object on the table—and then jerked back. She knew this object. White, shaped like a horseshoe, made of roughly molded ceramic and full of small holes like a flute…

It had belonged to him. It was the horse-call Link always carried with him.

She turned away, unable to look at it any longer. But then she felt something. Something faint, strange… and achingly familiar.

_ …Both? _

“Hey”

Her breath caught once again, and she turned around, slowly. And this time…

This time, it was not a mistake. It was not just a moment. It was not just a wish.

It was him. Link.  _ Her _ Link.

But… after all these years dreaming of seeing him again, now that she was finally able to, it almost hurt her more than spending the rest of her life without meeting once more.

Because he wasn’t really there. He was just an echo, a wisp, a remnant. The spirit of someone who was dead.

He had been dead for two hundred years.

And yet, he smiled. A smile she had missed for a long time.

“You idiot… While you were staring off into dreamland…”

His words caught her so off-guard, her barely-contained sobs came out as a laugh instead.

“Wh- you- after all this time,  _ that’s _ the first thing you say to me??”

He laughed.

“Well I had to say  _ some _ thing, didn’t I? And you looked so sad, so…”

“Of course I’m sad! You idiot! I didn’t realize… I didn’t… …You’ve been gone for so long, and I never knew.”

While she had been staring off into dreamland, her time had been stolen. It had passed her by.

Silence.

“I guess time flows differently here from there, ever since you broke the connection with the mirror.”

More silence.

“…I’m sorry.”

“You’d  _ better _ be”.

He smiled ruefully, then his smile turned a little mischievous. “You know, I remember you being a lot bossier and kind of rude.”

She whirled on him, almost angry through her tears. “Oh, let me have my moment!!”

Then her anger dissolved into laughter. She couldn’t help it.

He laughed too.

Eventually, the laughter faded away into a lingering silence.

“Hey. Do you have time? Can we… talk?”

His faint, misty blue form flickered, and he looked towards the door.

“You’ll keep the kid waiting, but I have time.”

“He can wait. I am a queen, after all”. She raised an eyebrow, and he laughed.

“Sure, then.”

There were so many things she never told him. So many things she should have. So many things she could tell him now, after two hundred years.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually get this wordy with my writing, but it felt appropriate for this one I guess. 
> 
> This is actually a discarded idea from a longer LoZ work of mine (not posted anywhere yet, I'm getting there). Also, this doesn't really fit in with my personal canon-- I like to think that they were able to meet again, many times, someday, somehow. But this sad thought took hold of me and wouldn't let go until I wrote it, so here you go, now you can be sad with me.   
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
